Mumbai Express

This article is about Mumbai Express. For The Mumbai Xpress, see The Mumbai Xpress.

Mumbai Express
DVD cover
Directed by	Singeetham Sreenivasa Rao
Produced by	Kamal Haasan
Written by	Kamal Hassan Saurabh Shukla
Starring	Kamal Haasan, Manisha Koirala Nassar Santhana Bharathi Kovai Sarala Hardhik Pasupathy Ramesh Aravind Vaiyapuri
Music by	Ilayaraaja
Cinematography	R. Siddharth
Editing by	Ashmith Kunder
Release date(s)	15 April 2005
Running time	152 min.
Country	India
Language	Tamil/Hindi

Mumbai Express is a Tamil film directed by Singeetham Sreenivasa Rao, starring Kamal Haasan and Manisha Koirala. This film was produced by Kamal Haasan himself and music was composed by Ilayaraaja. This movie, released on Tamil New Year 2005 along with Chandramukhi and Sachien surprisingly failed at the box-office, even though the reviews were okay. Also made in Hindi as Mumbai Xpress, it was not successful there, either.

Plot

Three amateur thieves plot to kidnap a wealthy Chettiar’s (Santhana Bharathy's) son from the boy's school. They do a trial run. However on the eve of the kidnap, the guy whose job is to operate a crane in this plan is hospitalized. The services of Avinasi aka Mumbai Xpress (Kamal Haasan, brother of Kovai Sarala, a deaf stunt man performing daredevil bike acts is roped in. Twists and turns take place where the other two gang members are hurt and invariably our Mumbai Xpress is left to perform the task all by himself. He kidnaps a wrong boy Daddu (Hardhik), the illegitimate son of Ahalya (Manisha Koirala) and police officer Rao (Nassar), but manages to get a huge ransom from Chettiar by default. A brawl takes place between the original kidnap planners-Chidambaram (Pasupathy), Johnson (Vaiyapuri) and Avinasi in handling Ahalya’s child but Avinasi delivers the child unhurt to his mother. He eavesdrops into her tele-con with Rao where Rao wants to settle both the ransom and sever his ties with her. Ahalya pleads and coaxes him to help her get the ransom which Rao is willing to pay. The child takes a fancy to Avinasi and wants him to be the man in their life, and gets him to agree (or else he would throw himself from a multi storied building). Ahalaya wants either Rao’s or Chettiar’s money which Avinasi is holding, whereas Avinasi is in love and wants to be that protective person. Rao appoints Chettiar to handle the ransom and what follows is a series of mix-ups.

Cast

• Kamal Haasan ... Avinasi
• Manisha Koirala ... Ahalya
• Nassar ... Rao
• Ramesh Aravind ... Thambhu (Both Versions)
• Pasupathy ...Chidambaram
• Santhana Bharathy ... Chettiar
• Vaiyapuri ... Johnson
• Kovai Sarala ... Avinasi’s Sister
• Hardhik ... Hardhik
• Dheena ... Raju (Both Versions)
• Sharat Saxena ... Saxena (Both Versions)

Crew

• Director: Singeetham Sreenivasa Rao
• Banner: Rajkamal International
• Story/ Dialogue / Screenplay: Kamal Haasan
• Cinematography: Siddharthya
• Music: Ilayaraaja

Trivia

In the climaxes of both versions (Hindi & Tamil), you can see opposite casts viewing the newly opened Mumbai Xpress "death well". In this case, Kovai Serala, Vaiyapuri, Pasupathi, & Santhana Bharathy make a brief cameo during the climax of the Tamil version, while Vijay Raaz, Dinesh Lambha, & Saurabh Shulka appear in the Hindi version.

Reviews

National Award winning critic Baradwaj Rangan praised the movie in his review as "one of Kamal Haasan’s most tight-knit, most convoluted screenplays, where every pratfall, every pun, every preposterous moment seems to have been spat on, polished, and precisely positioned into an overall jigsaw pattern". He added that "Mumbai Xpress isn’t exactly an all-out comedy. Like Pesum Padam, it’s the blues with belly laughs, a stack of serious issues coated with smiles." ^{[1] [2]}

Box office

The movie opened well in the First week, as usual for a Kamal Haasan movie, but the collection dipped from second week, mainly due to the Digital film implementation, resulting in slight dark output, which left the viewer uneasy. The overall good review of the movie did not helped for the New technology. But considering the low budget of the film, Raj Kamal International earned profit. It was pitted against Chandramukhi and sachien at the BO. *The film grossed $2 million at the box office in its Hindi belt release after 3 weeks in a limited release edition of just 100 prints. The film grossed 1 crore Indian Rupees in Hindi belt alone in 3 weeks. Taking TN and other parts of the south into consideration broke even. The film although widely considered a loss was a great victory technologically for Indian cinema industry as a whole. The total cost of the movie was only 3 crores and Raj Kamal International got back the investment and was successful in having the first Digital film implemented(shot in a mere DV camera!) a no profit no loss affair thus opening up a new path for potential filmmakers and India's forey into the digital film making.^[3]. As per " ibosnetwork ", India's leading Box-Office portal, Mumbai Xpress collected Rs.4 Crores in Hindi Belt. ^[4].

Additional info

Raj Kamal's and UTV's latest Unnai Pol Oruvan was shot in another digital video camera called Red One which promises a great resolution and has indeed delivered to its hype.

References

1. ^ Rangan, Baradwaj. "Review - Mumbai Xpress". desipundit.com. http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/2005/04/21/review-mumbai-xpress-chandramukhi/. Retrieved 2008-01-09. 
2. ^ "Xpress bang on target". hindu.com. 15 April 2005. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/fr/2005/04/15/stories/2005041503180200.htm. Retrieved 2011-10-10. 
3. ^ "BoxOffice India - Mumbai Xpress". http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/boxoffice/12447/index.html. 
4. ^ "ibosnetwork - The Kamal Hasan Station". http://ibosnetwork.com/asp/filmbodetails.asp?id=Mumbai+Xpress. 

External links

• Mumbai Express at the Internet Movie Database